AN NHS radiographer who illegally accessed the personal records of more than 200 female patients before pestering them for dates is facing jail.

Andrew Stewart, 32, worked at hospitals in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire where he dealt with hundreds of patients.

But he used his position to look up patient files of women he had been treating and made a note of their contact details.

The medic then began hounding the women, some of whom were domestic abuse victims, with a string of messages on Facebook and WhatsApp in a desperate bid to get into relationships with them.

He provided fake names including Andy Smith and Jamie Scott to protect his identity and called various women ‘hot, ‘gorgeous’ and even complimented one on her ‘nice boobs’.

He also sent photos of himself and in one message told a woman he was mature ‘when it comes to pleasing women in bed’.

Stewart even offered to tell one female patient the results of her MRI scan before she had spoken to her consultant.

His crimes were uncovered when a woman he had been messaging recognised him at Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock and reported it.

A massive probe was launched within the NHS leading to hundreds of patients receiving letters saying that their data had been breached.

Stewart, of Fenwick, was suspended by bosses when the breach came to light and when interviewed he claimed ‘loneliness’ drove him to begin contacting his victims.

He has now appeared at Hamilton Sheriff Court and admitted two charges of obtaining personal data of 32 named women and others without a clinical or medical reason to do so.

He also pled guilty to a further 16 charges of acting in a threatening and abusive manner to women he had contacted between March 2013 and August 2018.

Depute Fiscal Vish Kathuria said: “The accused began working for NHS Ayrshire in the early part of 2018 as a radiographer.

“Prior to this he had worked for an eight year period with NHS Lanarkshire.

“As part of his role the accused had access to the Radiology Information System (RIS) which had full personal and medical details of all patients that go through the radiology department.

“This would include contact details such as mobile numbers and email addresses.

“The accused used this system to search for women, mostly aged between 25-35 years old and he would make contact with them via their mobile phones pretending to have come across their number in his phone and not being aware how he had gotten their number.”

Stewart, who also worked at Hairmyres Hospital in East Kilbride, was caught out after being spotted by a 25-year-old woman who had been treated for a broken finger following an assault.

She was left terrified when he messaged her because she believed it was her ex-partner trying to get in touch.

Mr Kathuria added: “She received text messages from the accused stating he was called Andy Smith who began asking her where she was from and how old she was which she found suspicious.

“She asked him to send her a picture which the accused did via WhatsApp because she feared her former partner was winding her up.

“He then stated ‘you are hot’ and ‘I want to get to know you’ which she ignored and did not hear from the accused again.

“She had cause to attend the hospital again and this time saw the accused working wearing a name badge reading ‘Andy’ and recognised him from his picture and realised he must have got her telephone number from her medical records.

“She messaged him saying ‘I’ve just seen you at the hospital’ and the accused blocked her so she could not contact him further and she informed the hospital of her concerns.

“Following this complaint the accused was asked to attend a meeting with management and admitted contacting her and obtaining her details during working hours, he stated this was random and he had never done it before.

“An audit of his IT usage and it was apparent he had accessed numerous records without any clinical reason for doing so.

“Another meeting was held and he admitted there had been other patients namely females in their 20s and 30s and also admitted engaging in this behaviour while working at Hairmyres.

“The accused was also informed that hospital investigations suggested he had inappropriately accessed around 220 records and when asked if that was a fair estimate, replied ‘yes’ and the matter was reported.”

The court heard that when arrested by police over the matter, Stewart told officers: “I wasn’t trying to achieve anything, I had no motive. This is just, I don’t know how to describe this, it’s loneliness if you must know, loneliness.”

Sheriff Thomas Millar deferred sentence until next month for reports and continued bail.

He added: “Accessing personal details from a hospital is extremely serious and gives me considerable concern.

“I have seen from the victim impact statements the impact this has had on women’s trust they have now in their personal information remaining private.

“All options will be open to the court when you return.”

Dr Crawford McGuffie, joint medical director of NHS Ayrshire and Arran, said: “NHS Ayrshire and Arran was made aware of a member of staff inappropriately accessing patient records.

“We take patient confidentially extremely serious.

“We conducted a full investigation at the time to ascertain the extent of the breach, and contacted the small number of patients who were affected.

“We would like to apologise to all those affected by this information breach.

“This individual no longer works for the organisation.”